Sermon: Community and Connection Means Relationships – Rev. Eric Banner

I wonder, do you know what it means for your spirit to understand, and be understood? Do you know the hunger of reaching for a metaphorical bowl of connection, only to find it empty? Do you know what it is like to sing “I am?”
I ask, because these questions often live at the heart of our longing for something more. For a deeper connection, for a greater community, for relationships that matter to us, and that show we matter to the ones we surround ourselves with.

But let me ask a different question—how many of you feel like you grew up knowing, really knowing, what it took to be in a relationship? How many of you feel like you were taught how to be a good friend or partner in ways that have stood the test of time? Or, put the other way, how many of you feel like, at least some of the time, even when you want a relationship to work out, there is something that gets in the way, in ways that leave you feeling like something has gone wrong, and you're not sure what, if anything, can be done about it?

Those are big questions to start a sermon with, I know. If I have read the room correctly, some of you are leaning in right now, saying, “Yes, yes, I know that feeling,” and others of you are trying to figure out if you could just “go to the bathroom” and not come back. It's okay. I've been pulled between both of those feelings for months, between a sense that there is something we need to talk about, and the sense that, like that old Jewish story about Jonah, I would rather just run away. So no matter what you're feeling, excited or concerned, leery or lively, you have the right to all those feelings, and I believe you are in the right place this morning.

And here's why—

A couple of years ago this congregation adopted a new mission statement. You hear it every Sunday. A sanctuary for spiritual growth, community, and connection, building the world we dream about. And those are good words. They sound nice. They point to something important. But if we are to make them real, they have to do more than just sit on a slide deck or hang on a wall, they have to be lived out. And the part about community and connection, those words mean something. They mean relationships. Hopefully good relationships. But for many of us we were taught, explicitly and implicitly, that relationships were things that just happened, or they didn't. Either you were madly in love with someone, or you had nothing in common with them, or not enough in common with them, and there was nothing that could be done about it. And I don't mean just romantic relationships, either. I mean the kinds that lie at the heart of community and connections, platonic, social relationships, friendships.

So this year I want to do something a little different. Some years you'll hear us go through a few sermon series, one Sunday after the next, until we've exhausted the matter and we move on. But this year I want to share with you a set of things I've learned over decades about relationships, and that felt like it was going to be “a little too much” to do just one week after the next. So, instead, this year, on the last Sunday of the month, we're going to do a service about something about what it means to be in relationship with other human beings, and what we can learn from some of the leading researchers in the world about how we can avoid getting stuck in that either-or place that feels so familiar to so many of us.

Last spring the comedian Taylor Tomlinson released a new special, Prodigal Daughter, and it was, in many ways, a return to topics she's been talking about for years, including the work of reckoning with the faith of her childhood, a form of Evangelical Christianity, and in that special she said at one point that her childhood preacher had only three sermons he ever gave—

1. You are Forgiven
2. Merry Christmas Everyone!
3. Marriage is Hard

I promised my wife that I wouldn't preach that last one. But, she did give me permission to tell you that one of the reasons we're together, both initially, and still, is because of the way that from the very beginning we have been committed to the idea that relationships take work. Like the very beginning.

Way back in 2005 I was finishing up a program at the university in our hometown, Kansas State, and it turned out that a class that I needed wasn’t available. And there was only one semester left before I was supposed to graduate. So I was told, in almost these exact words, to make a class up. I went to a mentor of mine, Susan Allen, who had taught a class in nonviolence studies I had taken, and she agreed to oversee an independent study course as a second, more advanced look at nonviolence, and so one of my first class assignments was to attend a workshop on something I had never heard of called Nonviolent Communication, or NVC, for short. And it turned out Emily was in a book group that was reading that very book, and was at that very workshop, and that afternoon we connected during a break, and made plans to go on our very first date that evening.

But I promised, this series isn't just about romantic relationships, and neither was that workshop. It was about a model offered by Marshall Rosenberg, led by, it turned out, a fellow UU from 60 miles down the road I hadn't yet met. But it was model developed by a man who had been working in conflicted situations ranging in size from schools with violence problems to Israel-Palestine. And I wanted to start there because of two key insights I've held ever since—

There are words for what you are feeling, and you can use them—and—We are ultimately responsible for what we choose to do with what happens to us.

You see, what Rosenberg did was he laid out the idea that when we are in a conflict, we can slow down and focus on connecting, with ourselves, and with each other, and we can do it without being violent, in our words or our actions. And, he said, if we do that, we're far more likely to get our needs met than if we just shout and label and blame.

I've been putting the teaching to use ever since. In its most mechanical form, he offers four steps to addressing a situation, and actually, not just conflicted ones, but, using the same skills, to build more of the things we want and hope for.

He said the first step is to name what happened. To simply offer up the facts of the situation. Which, I can tell you, is hard. Really hard. Most of us have been taught to say “You did ...” / “I can't believe you...” / “How could you...” But, as we'll hear from later in the year, the work of Julie & John Gottmann, has shown that even the use of “you” puts our conversation partner on the defense, and is mostly experienced as what they would label as one of the four horsemen of relationship failure, criticism.

So Rosenberg said, name the facts of the thing, as dispassionately and succinctly as possible:

“When I came home and there were things spread all over the floor.”

 

“When I went to use the computer and it wasn't in its normal place.”

 

“When I was interrupted in my meeting.”

Name it, without blame, and, without a lot of long winded details or historical connections, like a list of all the other times it has happened.

That seemed helpful. But what he said to do next was the part that really blew my mind. Now, if you were raised as a boy, this might feel particularly helpful to you. Are you familiar with the “ad feelings?” Mad. Glad. Sad. Those are the words that we were handed to describe what's going on for us, but not this workshop. No, there were two handouts we got at that point, and they were labeled simply, Feelings when our Needs Are Met, and Feelings when our Needs Are Not Met, which, again is a sort of technical way to say something, but the lists just threw me for a loop. Not because I didn't recognize them, but because I did recognize them, and I knew that I basically never used them.

When was the last time you didn't just feel mad, but felt resentful?

When was the last time you didn't just feel glad, but felt enlivened?

Two whole pages of feelings that were available to all of us, but that I wasn't using.

Overjoyed, renewed, spellbound, aggravated, rattled, dejected. On and on that list went.

And what Rosenberg was offering was a literal cheat sheet to name what was going on, if we took the time to slow down and actually connect with what we were feeling. There are other lists, like the one on the cover of the order of service this morning, the circle, that lets you go out from a basic feeling to one with greater nuance, which I've come to know and love in the years since, but it was that moment, in that workshop so many years ago, that I first started to realize what I hadn't learned, which was how to be feelings literate, and use those feelings to do what we are always saying we want, connect with the people around us.

Now Rosenberg suggests that all of our feelings are connected to needs we have, universal human needs gathered under categories, that can help us identify what is missing. Things like safety, love, understanding, creativity, meaning, and more. And that might make a whole different sermon, but again, there was a cheat sheet, filled with words, words I knew, but never used, because I had learned along the way that either you felt good or you felt bad, and usually you were just subject to the world.

We sat there, in this workshop, trying out what it would be like to say:

“I need support right now.”

or,

“I need to feel secure.”

or,

“I need food.”

You know, sometimes you just need a banana, as any parent of a toddler can tell you.

His point, which has stayed with me for so long, is that when we can name our needs, we can ask for what we need, not just a single strategy ("I need pizza" / "I need sex" / "I need $500 cash today"), but to take responsibility for our own lives, our own feelings, and ask, not demand, but genuinely ask, if someone would be willing to do something with or for us.

Not because they have to, but because we all deserve to have relationships, not just romantic ones, that meet our needs, with closeness, empathy, purpose, stimulation, and so much more. We are responsible for knowing how we feel, and then for seeking out the things that will help us get our needs met.

“I feel hungry, and pizza sounds good. Do you want to get some with me?”

 

“I’m feeling excited, and I’d love to share some connection with you. Would you come over here and kiss me?”

 

“I’m feeling scared, and if I don’t pay this bill today, bad things are going to happen. Can you help me figure out a solution?”

And, when we do the work well, we listen for what other people feel and need, too, so we can decide if what we want and what they want are close enough to work together, in community and connection.

Now, there is a good and right criticism of how NVC is sometimes practiced, not as Rosenberg offered it, but by unskillful practitioners. Sometimes people think that just because they want someone to do something, that person then has to say yes. But NVC has offered me something else, a structured framework to return to in my moments of greatest frustration, and deepest joy, and to say “If I'm not getting my needs met, what can I do to change this situation, what can I do to adjust this dynamic, so I can feel the way I want to feel, instead of thinking that other people make me feel a certain way, and there's nothing to do about it but argue, or leave.”

Like every tool, it's got its limits. It doesn't have a power analysis, for one. Sometimes you aren't in the position to have a rich and meaningful conversation that connects with the other person. They might be in a power over situation with you, unwilling or uninterested in listening or collaborating, or they might be abusive or violent, and what you need is security, and to leave. They might be unwilling or unable to understand your experience, and use cultural expectations about how “polite people” express themselves to diminish your feelings and your experience. None of which is helpful.

But as my colleague, Lisa Bovee-Kemper put it some years ago:

“When I am using NVC as a personal practice, I take the time before a difficult conversation (or during, if I’m super grounded and present!) to observe and identify how I’m feeling, what baggage or past experience might be impacting my responses, and what are my needs as I enter the conversation. If I can be clear about my needs and expectations, then I can more easily stay focused, listen to the other person’s experiences, and invite them to express their needs. Identifying feelings and needs for myself before I go into a conversation and being aware of what they are as it is in process is part of emotional literacy. As a personal/internal process that informs my communication rather than a forced model for policing yours, it is eminently useful.”

So that's what I'm trying to get at this morning. We want community and connection. But it doesn't just happen. It happens when we take time to adopt the growth mindset we talk about all the time here. To learn new skills, or practice ones that we have gotten rusty on. Because, although I hope I have a greater range than Taylor Tomlinson's childhood minister, he was right about one thing, even if he said it less skillfully than I hope I do. Relationships are hard, even marriages sometimes, but we don't have to do the work of building connection and community with only the limited tools so many of us were handed as children. We can do better, and I hope we will.

And when we do, we might just find that we, too, are feeling—

Compassionate and openhearted,

Renewed and rested,

Cheerful and pleased

Thankful and touched

Surprised and invigorated,

And so much more.

May you know what you feel, and know what you need, and may we all be able to ask for the relationships that make our lives full and rich in all the ways we all deserve.

Rev. Eric Banner
Senior Minister